


Not Her Ship

by hossgal



Category: Firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-08
Updated: 2006-12-08
Packaged: 2019-04-29 07:22:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14467773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hossgal/pseuds/hossgal
Summary: Zoe knows her place.





	Not Her Ship

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Firefly’s Glow](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Firefly%27s_Glow), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Firefly's Glow collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fireflysglow/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Set pre- movie.  
>  Author's Note: For Lawst, who asked for "Serenity, Zoe." Thanks to Florastuart for beta. 650 words.

  
Author's notes: Set pre- movie.  
Author's Note: For Lawst, who asked for "Serenity, Zoe." Thanks to Florastuart for beta. 650 words.   


* * *

Not Her Ship

## Not Her Ship

_Serenity_ doesn't belong to Zoe, and she - the ship - never will. 

The name on the title - the real title, the one in the safe box welded to the keel along with twelve false id's in two genders and five thousand cash in untraceable gems and alloys, the stash that she knows about and Mal knows about and that they swore they'd never touch, until time itself ran out on them - the name on that title said *OWNER: Malcom Reynolds*, and it wasn't going to have Zoe's name on it, ever. 

She owns her guns and her boots and one beautiful dress and if she were the type to keep help, she might admit to owning her husband. But that's more a mutual thing, and leaves her bound to him in return, and still with no more than one body to call her own. 

And _Serenity_ isn't. 

It's not just the title - the heart of the ship, the heart of her belongs to Wash or to Kaylee or sometimes to the two them together with Mal thrown in on the edges. Zoe loves her husband and she loves Mal and she'd kill anyone who laid a hand on Kaylee without so much as blinking, but she isn't any of those three, and she doesn't understand the soul that lives in the spinning rotor in the engine room nor the brain that lies in the bridge computers nor the determined will that is the cunning and desperation that kept _Serenity_ fed and fueled and running. She isn't them, and the ship isn't hers. 

In this, Zoe knows, she's no different than the Doc or the Preacher or Jayne or River, or Inara, or any of the dozens of lost sheep and paying passengers that had boarded Serenity and then left again at journey's end. Left, while Serenity kept on flying. 

And yet, there were days... 

Days when she sits watch at the bridge, waiting on Mal and Jayne to come back from a supply run, watching the sun come up again over the rim of a world, daybreak again and again, and hears that groan as the sunlight hits the ship and heats her skin again. And it's like hearing a bunkmate rolling out of bed in the morning, grumbling for tea. 

Nights when she's heading back to the ship, with Mal or with Wash or alone, one or two drinks down and all the lights of the landing field ablaze like the night sky, and a cold fear hits her, that she doesn't know where she is, or where she's going. And then there's something - a flicker so fast she misses it, or something about the way a light is more amber than the next, or the faint arc of the bridge crest, but she's halfway across the field and still she knows right where _Serenity_ is, and she knows the way home. 

Heartbeats of time when the fire is coming thick and hard, and they're running, scampering out of the situation just as fast as their feet can carry them, and she knows, she _knows_ she isn't going to make it this time, that the ramp is just too far away, that she'll never reach the ship in time, and then she hears the roar of the engines cycling up, and it makes the hair on her head lift, makes her heat beat just that much faster, stretches her legs those bare centimeters more, and she hits the deck just as the hatch slams shut behind her, and Jayne's shouting _All aboard, all aboard, go, go, GO!_

And she lies there, dragging breath in with lungs that ache, through a mouth that's parched for drink and laughing like a fool because they made it, one more time, _we made it..._

And it's then that Zoe remembers _Serenity_ isn't hers. Never will be. 

But she belongs to the ship. Now, and always.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:   **Not Her Ship**   
Author:   **hossgal**   
Details:   **Standalone**  |  **PG**  |  **gen**  |  **3k**  |  **12/08/06**   
Characters:  Zoe   
Summary:  Zoe knows her place.   
Notes:  Set pre- movie.   
Author's Note: For Lawst, who asked for "Serenity, Zoe." Thanks to Florastuart for beta. 650 words.   
  



End file.
